How Bad Does England Suck? How bad does England suck?

So bad that I've started an entire new blog just to write about it at EnglandSucks.wordpress.com. Here's what's on the About page:

Ah, England. The sun never sets on the British Empire. Chin up. Pip pip and all that rot.

England used to be a great place, cool even. But now it seems to be circling the drain, as life imitating the art of George Orwell’s 1984. This site will attempt to document how. As to why, I’ll leave that to experienced political analysts. Personally, I think it’s a damn shame.

At this point, I'm afraid the only things England has left going for it are fish & chips and Doctor Who.

Labels: England

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  What the Hell is Wrong with These People? OK, I'm as much in favor of reforming drug laws as the next 60's guy, but really...

The last paragraph quoted is what ticked me off.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Dozens of San Diego State University students were arrested after a sweeping drug investigation found that some fraternity members openly dealt drugs and one even sent a mass text message advertising cocaine, authorities said Tuesday.

Two kilograms of cocaine were seized, along with 350 Ecstasy pills, marijuana, psychedelic mushrooms, hash oil, methamphetamine, illicit prescription drugs, several guns and at least $60,000 in cash, authorities said.

Of the 96 people arrested, 75 were students. Eighteen of the students were arrested Tuesday when nine search warrants were executed at various locations including fraternities, said Jesse Rodriguez, San Diego County assistant district attorney.

The undercover probe, dubbed Operation Sudden Fall, was sparked by the cocaine overdose death of a student in May 2007, authorities said. As the investigation continued, another student, from Mesa College, died Feb. 26 of a cocaine overdose at an SDSU fraternity house, the DEA said.

Those arrested included a student who was about to receive a criminal justice degree and another who was to receive a master's degree in homeland security.

Labels: drugs

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  Albert Hofmann Takes His Last Trip Fresh from revelations that New York City, under the leadership of admitted pot smoker Mayor Bloomberg, is now the marijuana arrest capital of the world, this morning's news is a downer indeed. Albert Hofmann, the father/inventor/synthesizer of LSD, has died at the age of 102.

So much for those who are against "drugs" like LSD and marijuana on a health basis. Hofmann himself took hundreds of LSD trips, and stayed quite mentally and professionally active to the very end.

He once upbraided Timothy Leary for popularizing LSD to the point where it became, to many, a recreational drug. Hofmann felt it should be approached seriously as a spiritual aid for getting closer to nature, an outlook that most experienced users of hallucinogens seem to share.

He is already greatly missed by many.

Labels: acid, Hofmann, LSD

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  Auri Is a Cat Burglar! Today Susan was making herself meatballs for lunch. She heated them up and put the plate down on the counter while heading to the refrigerator for some tomato sauce.

Up jumped Auri, who stuck out a claw and flipped one of the meatballs off the plate! She then played meatball hockey for quite a while after finding out it was too hot for her to eat!

Labels: kittens

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  Of Popes and Cats Back in the Sixties or Seventies, David Peel released an album entitled "The Pope Smokes Dope". While that scenario is extremely hard to believe, it is no doubt true that the current Pope and I share a different addiction...that of kissing cats.

Pope Benedict XVI is well-known as a cat lover and a recent New York times article goes into this in some depth.

But wait, there's more! His official biography was written by a cat! How things have changed since Pope Gregory IX declared black cats to be evil, causing innumerable cats to be killed!

Like cats, Popes have multiple names. Pope Benedict's cats may call him Benny, but I doubt it, since his real name is Joseph (he took the name Benedict when he was elected Pope). And, anti-Catholic propaganda to the contrary, even Popes don't have unlimited power -- Pope Benedict was unable to have his cats join him in his official residence. So fooey on the Vatican, anyway...at least "Catholic" begins with "cat"!  ¶ 07:41 0 comments

  Bad News From All Over
I've been kind of busy working on some of new projects for a few weeks, so perhaps I haven't been paying enough attention to world events as I should have. Well, actually that must be true or I'd have a lot more posts here for April, because there's plenty to worry about. And I don't mean global warming, either, but some of the scariest things I've read since I heard Hillary Clinton was running for president:

Food shortages (even matzo shortages), food riots, and higher food prices. Perhaps this article isn't enough to make you worry in detail, but OTOH it might be a good idea to dig up all those ideas people had when preparing for the great Y2K problem that never happened...

The Coming-Soon-to-a-Theater-of-War-Near-You Conflict with Islam. I'm not going to pretend I know all the answers when it comes to Muslims, Christianity, and Western culture, but Bill Warner, the interviewee of this piece, surely sounds like he does. It's a very long article but you won't notice that because, no matter how you feel about the subject, you'll be shaken up when you read it.

And if that isn't enough, now pundits are seeing the entire world at war -- for centuries -- over the effects of climate change.

Happy Earth Day.  ¶ 07:17 0 comments

  Sometimes You Get Lucky ...and just today, I found three people who were very lucky. Must be some good energy floating around or something.

The first: OK, you've heard of all those fools falling for Nigerian money scams. Some woman actually got her $4500 back, courtesy of the U.S. Postal Inspectors and the Nigerian government.

The second: this next lady should get on national TV. Her literally one-in-a-trillion-shot is far more interesting than any of the so-called "reality shows" now clogging the airwaves. In case you're not one of those people who actually click on links, someone shot the woman between the eyes with a .44 caliber bullet that struck her head and split in half. Each half zipped around her skull under the skin and came out behind her ears; a few stiches and she's good as new.

The third: dang, somehow this makes me proud of my Russian blood. An electrician in the Russian city of Vologda went drinking with a buddy, came home on the bus the next morning, stuffed some sausage in his mouth and fell asleep. It was only later that his wife noticed he had a 6" knife sticking out of his back, courtesy of his drinking buddy who he apparently had a disagreement with.

He's just fine too.  ¶ 23:35 0 comments

  Tuxies In Japanese! We have a very dear friend who lives in Tokyo and is not only a world-famous computer journalist but also a cat lover. She has two cat blogs -- one in English and one in Japanese -- and she recently sent us a link to a Japanese tuxedo cat video. It's on the Japanese-language version of YouTube, so there are lots of tuxedo "related videos" on the right side of the page, just like the English version.

Labels: tuxedo cat

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  A Moment of Silence for Some Friends of Cats OK, not really friends, perhaps. But all the cats loved to watch them.

Today Susan unexpectedly lost one of her beautiful fish, a Gold Nugget Pleco, and Madame Houdini, a White Line Gecko. Dang, they were both fine yesterday.

Here's a picture of Madame Houdini with two of her little gecko friends in happier days (like when she was alive):



She wasn't called Madame Houdini for nothing. In her most famous escape (documented in the upcoming book Famous Geckos and Where They Hid, soon to be a major motion picture starring Stickon D. Wall and Leggo Mai Gecko), she not only got out of a completely sealed tank, but eluded six cats for three days by pretending to be a wall decoration, and then resisted capture by numerous experienced reptile wranglers. If you don't believe me, check out these photos.

Madame Houdini could often be found on the back wall of her tank, where she teased the heck out of all the cats, but especially Jennifur, Auri, and Aurum. Jenni sometimes stood up on her hind legs like a meercat to look at her, while Aurum would come out in the middle of the night and stare at her for hours.

We will all miss them both.

Labels: cats, fish, gecko, lizards, pleco

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  Pain Sucks Because It Hurts It was just about three weeks ago when I had an interesting experience with Panther. Unfortunately, while Panther managed to stimulate all kinds of terrific creativity, he also somehow managed to somehow put my leg out of joint, as it were.

Well, that was two weeks ago, and I still don't like to complain, but since then I've been able to sit at the computer productively less and less each day. The pain has been increasing, and I was saving my Vicodin pills for serious episodes (i.e. when I screamed). And walking around with a cane all the time was starting to get old...especially in public, when people saw me and assumed I was old. Anyway, my leg started getting numb at random times and then all the time, so I made an appointment to see the doctor, which was today.

Just a few hours before the appointment, I was suddenly seized by a pain that felt like the mother of all cramps in my calf (as opposed to the mother of all calves, which would be a giant cow...but I was ready to have a cow anyway by this time). Somehow I had the presence of mind to check my leg muscles, and there were no knots, cramps, Charley Horses, or anything similar. It was just pure acute unmitigated pain with no apparent cause.

How bad was it? I called upon God, Panther, Jennifur, Susan, all known spiritual entities and beneficent demons, and used several dozen colorful metaphors. I called Susan's voicemail to tell her I loved her, just in case. I was in very poor shape indeed.

Suddenly it stopped.

Of course, I expected it to start up again at any moment, but I took the opportunity to take a shower, get dressed, eat, and do all those things people do before going to the doctor. I wanted Steven with me just in case the pain struck again while I was driving, so I left as soon as he got home from school.

I was sure the doctor would tell me I had a blood clot in my leg that was about to break loose and kill me, but she decided my problem had all the symptoms of some sort of nerve damage or displacement (my mother always told me I had a lot of nerve). So tomorrow I'm off to get X-rays of my hip and pelvis, which doesn't worry me because I've already had children.

And the kicker: all that jumping around I did with the non-cramp (or was it an anti-cramp?) must have jiggled something back into place, because virtually all the previous pain has been gone since then. Either that, or Panther and Jennifur really did manage to cure me...which wouldn't surprise me much at this point.

Labels: agony, cane, cats, healing, leg pain, Vicodin

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  The Six Sleeping Cats We have a guest blogger this evening: Steven, our youngest (a precocious 14-year-old) son. As soon as I heard what happened to him, I dragged him over so you could hear it too:

Hello, this is Steven. Just tonight, I fell asleep on our living room couch. I wake up about an hour later with Charger laying next to my chest, Agile under my head (he makes a very furry pillow), Yang in the crook of my leg, Yin on the other side of my legs, and Aurum (mind boggling!) sitting right on top of my side. It was quite a furry blanket as you can imagine :) Then Auri decides to get next to my face so I can taste her fur...

  ¶ 21:23 0 comments